Word: kirkpatrick
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When U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, who had been accompanying the Kissinger Commission in Central America, flew to Washington for a speaking engagement two weeks ago, she had no indication that a major staff change was about to take place. National Security Adviser William Clark said nothing about it when they met at the White House, and it was only because she had a bad bronchial infection that she canceled her return to Latin America. She did not hear about her trusted colleague's nomination as Interior Secretary until an aide called the following...
Thus began a process that, at least in the eyes of the proud and prickly U.N. Ambassador, TIME has learned, laid bare the backbiting and power struggles within the White House. Kirkpatrick was not upset primarily by her failure to be tapped for the National Security Council (NSC) post. But she now views what happened to her as a shabby betrayal by people she considered friends within the Administration. Whether or not the slights she perceives were in fact intended, her experience provides a glimpse of the personal rivalries that have long undermined Ronald Reagan's policymaking apparatus...
When Clark finally called her to tell of his move, Kirkpatrick urged him to reconsider. She feared there would be no one left in the Administration with clout enough to pull together American policy around the globe. Secretary of State George Shultz, she felt, was too absorbed in international economic policy, East-West issues and crisis management in the Middle East to develop strategy elsewhere. Until now, she and her hard-line allies, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and CIA Director William Casey, had been able to fill the gap, but only because Clark listened to them-and Reagan listened...
Although he later let it be known that he had sought the Interior job, Clark told Kirkpatrick that he was simply doing what the President asked. He assured her that there would be no ill effects on policy if she were to succeed him at the NSC. It was an idea seconded by Casey, when he called the same evening...
...Kirkpatrick had not at that point harbored any real hope of taking over at the NSC. A few months before, noticing that Clark seemed overburdened, she had offered to give up her U.N. post and come to Washington as his deputy. He had turned the suggestion aside, adding that she might become National Security Adviser if he ever quit. Just before she left for Central America, Clark confided that he was tired of the disagreements with Shultz. The NSC job was taxing his health, and he wanted her to succeed him. But she filed these conversations away as idle speculations...